Facing up to reality

August 30, 2010

Dear Sir,

It is with interest and complete agreement, that I write to your paper concerning a letter that was sent to you on Saturday from "neither a construction worker or a lawyer". In the letter, there was a rather detailed and descriptive assessment of the comparative salaries of the local construction worker and the minimum lawyers, or other white collar employee with a college degree. I wish to add other thoughts to this. How on earth are we going to staff all these elaborate new hotels all needing service staff, with local employees all expecting similar type salaries. We are not going to be able to achieve this; hence the need for so-called foreign workers willing to work for much less in order to make the enterprise profitable.

With this comes the housing, transportation, hospital care, and many other strains on our infrastructure. We have worked ourselves into a place between a rock and a hard place. I have just returned from the US and had the need to visit several industrial areas and was amazed to see how many were either in foreclosure or already closed, and this was where the average salary was considerably less. And I must note, regardless of pay, jobs were unavailable.

I can only surmise that this happy, idyllic situation here on this Island, will have to cease and be more conservative or our present public debt will escalate to the point where we will be unable to pay for the service or even the interest. Our present keepers of the exchequer will have to sharpen their pencils or move on to lesser employment. I hope that the founders of any future government see the need to remove some of the rotten or dead wood and trim the sails for a safer and prosperous future.

W. (PETER) OUTERBRIDGE

St. George's

No recession for some

August 26, 2010

Dear Sir,

For those who think Bermuda is in recession, think again.

Have you noticed how many roughlike girls own these SUVs with the chrome rims and only have one child? How about the ones with these superfast cars despite the island only being 21square miles (Tiburons, souped up Subarus, cars like that)? Makes you wonder huh? Makes me wonder if that girl ever got into debt problems would she be willing to give up that vehicle for something smaller to pay off that debt?

And the real classy guy in a suit and his BMW (I doubt he's ever in debt). How about the ones who put a whole lot of designs on their cars (the blues, greys, purples, etc.)? Are these people really in debt? They shouldn't be if they could afford to style up that car and they choose to keep it that way (like a car is more important than keeping a roof over your head, clothes on your back,and food to eat).

So where is the recession really then? Try all those homeless people suffering and although they can work, Government fails to hook them up with a place with zero payments on rent, electricity, BTC, etc., because they could cover them (they just choose not to and build all these heat absorbing buildings). They are the real people in recession. If you already have alot of cash and are still begging for more you're not in recession, nah, you're just plain greedy!

SOMETHING 2 THINK ABOUT

Warwick

Justice and 'just-us'

August 30, 2010

Dear Sir,

We have once again seen our "Justice system" fail to perform its duty of serving us "Peace, Liberty and Justice for all". I say this because how can it be justified by those holding the "Power" to allow two men to walk out of prison with time served for such serious act of criminal behaviour as we'd witnessed last week in our courtrooms?

I'm the first to admit "I'd led something of a jaded past" and I further don't profess to have been, nor to be, an angel; yet, it's "stuff" like that which too often happens in our courts as did happened last week that "tees me off"!

How in the world can they be convicted of one crime and not be convicted for the more serious act/s of drug trafficking? It just blows me away.

This is why I've stated more than once, we too often see in our courtrooms sentences I see to be an act of "Justice and Just-us" issued out to the chosen few...

RAYMOND RAY

St. George's